East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Gardner Dozois, 1947-2018

Six years ago, when I first self-published a science fiction story of mine, a guy on Facebook told me he would only read my work the day it would be selected by Gardner Dozois for one of his anthologies.
Then, and no sooner, he told me, he would be convinced my work was worth reading. Until then, he could not care less.

Gardner Dozois, one of the greatest editors ever to grace the field of science fiction, passed away yesterday. He was 71.
His output as an editor of anthologies is such that it will be impossible to summarize it here.
But check out this tidbit of information from Wikipedia:

Stories selected by Gardner Dozois for the annual best-of-year volumes have won, as of December 2015, 44 Hugos, 41 Nebulas, 32 Locus, 10 World Fantasy and 18 Sturgeon Awards.

And he loved old space opera and adventure science fiction, which is the reason why I will remember him today by reading the last anthology of his that I purchased: Old Mars.
Gardner Dozois contributed to make me what I am.
He will be sorely missed.